You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand. It becomes very easy in
times of pain, when you're going through a struggle or some suffering, to
bury yourself in that pain and suffering and use it as an excuse to do
something wrong. There will be pain, there will be suffering in this life.
There will be injustices. And as a Christian, you are not immune
to suffering. And if you think for one moment that because you believe in
God, that life's going to be peachy, that's not the truth. And
there are some preachers out there that would love to tell you that everything's going
to be okay and there's never going to be any suffering and the wrong or
that a good godly person who is pushing sin out of their life won't have
pain and suffering, and that is wrong as well. No, as a
Christian, you are not immune to suffering. But God calls you to handle
it in a different way, and that's what sets you apart. The world
will tell you to handle it completely different. The world tells you that pain
and suffering is an excuse to do wrong, a justification for bad behavior.
But God says differently. One Peter four verses twelve through nineteen. I'll focus
on nineteen, but I want you to hear the context. Dear friends,
do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something
strange were happening to you, But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of
Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed. If
you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for
the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer,
it should not be as a murderer or a thief, or any other kind
of criminal, or even somebody who meddles in other people's affairs. However,
if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God
that you bear that name. For it is time for judgment to begin with
the family of God. And if it begins with us, what will the
outcome be for those who do not obey the Gospel of God? And if
it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the
ungodly and the sinner? Listen to verse nineteen. So then those who suffer
according to God's will should commit themselves to the fateful Creator and continue to do
good. You can't use pain and suffering as an excuse as justification to do
wrong. As a believer, you're called to more than that. You're called
in the state of suffering one to recognize God, give glory to God,
and to to continue to do good. To press on with an attitude of
grace and kindness through the pain. It's very easy, even at the slightest
bit of discomfort. I see people use it as a justification to do bad
things or to act poorly towards others. Oh I'm sorry, I'm tired,
or I'm sick, I'm in pain. You can't use these times of pain
and suffering as an excuse to do wrong or even evil. The cause is
lost at that point. There will be times where you will be treated poorly
by others and by circumstances, and if you use that just as an opportunity,
just as an excuse to go out and do wrong, you will lose
all ground, all authority, all true justice, and all that will be
seen is that you that you used it as an excuse. Now it doesn't
matter why you are suffering, because all you did is cause more suffering and
how is it better that this suffering that you caused in comparison to the suffering
that was caused to you? How does that balance things out? And in
a time where it seems every where you turn someone is looking for an excuse
or justification for doing wrong, you will be driven to the point of anger
by other people. You will be poked and prodded, and it as a
believer, it could be multifold because people will look for ways to get you
riled up. People will look for ways to make you break down and reject
your faith, reject what you believe. And it's not just about believing in
God. It's about how that belief manifests in your life. And here in
one Peter four twelve through nineteen, it focuses on how you should continue to
give your life to God and even have points of pride when you're in pain,
knowing that you're suffering for and with Christ. And when I suffered,
it was for you, and when you suffer, it'll be for me.
But more than all of that is that in that time of pain, how
you hold yourself, how you conduct yourself as a Christian, as a believer,
as a human being, not to use it as an opportunity to do
evil. Rich, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show. Well, good morning,
hi, Rich. How can I help you? I was just wondering,
are you familiar with Andrew Centric and the Christo centric viewpoint of Romans three
around twenty through thirty one is So the battle, just to keep it at
an audience level, the battle between those that believe and through Centric is dealing
with that. It's about man and the christ Centric is obviously focused on the
Act on the Cross. So the dilemma or what people battle with do you
get to heaven based on something you do as a human or do you get
to heaven based on something Christ did on the cross? Right? Well,
it's more a little more specific than that. I'm trying. I'm trying to
thin it out for the group here. Let's make sure we don't heaven through
my belief or do I get through heaven through through Christ act of belief?
Okay, this is it. There is nothing added to the cross. The
sole act on the cross, the blood on the cross is what opens the
pathway the possibility of salvation the end That salvation is a gift only, but
that gift does have to be received. So if you think that that is
some sort of human centric aspect to it, I think that would be a
misunderstanding of that. But yes, you have to receive it. But there's
nothing you can add to the act on the cross to make it more valuable
or less valuable. You can't add or subtract. You can only receive it.
So if that reception to you is some sort of work or addition to
the cross, that's that's up to your interpretation. But there is nothing that
could be added to the cross. Edward, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Hi Jesus, how you doing good, Edward? What's going on?
Well? I called you about four years ago, and I'm strugg with kind
of going through life. I've had, you know, a lot of failed
relationships, marriages and jobs, and I'm raising my daughter. I'm a single
dad, and you know, I haven't worked in a while. You know,
I lost my father last year, and it just I almost feel like
like a mini job. I just feel like I kind of got to the
point where I had some big hobbies. I've always been a hard worker,
but I've had some health issues like a stomach problem and a back problem,
and my favorite hobby a few months back, I just quit doing that,
and that was like the last thing that gave me like a lot of passionate
about and fun. You quit it because of lack of finances or because of
physically, I just lost interest. It seems like each year, like a
few more things go where I've kind of want stopped wanting to kind of do
them because of my health mentally or physically or both. And it's gotten to
the point now where I really don't even hardly do anything. I mean,
I I do a lot of stuff, but it's not like like I did
before, where you know, I did a lot of you know, yard
workhouse work and my hobby and just stayed really busy. And it's just kind
of like I've lost like my mojo, right, you know. And I
know some of it's my health. You know. You go to the health
practitioners, they you tell them you're depressed or you have anxiety or this or
that, and they they want to put you on all sorts of drugs,
and then you get onto that, you get on that train and and then
it's like like I didn't even sleep last night, and that that never I
never do that, And I don't know what you know, there was a
couple of reasons. I thought, well, maybe it was this or that,
but fact B I didn't sleep and uh you you you mentioned your hobbies
or any of them physical. Yeah, the one it was the one thing
I just always love to do since I was little with Serf, and that
would that I always had that and it was something I really loved to do.
And I just I don't even do that anymore because I I went out
and did it a few times recently and it just wasn't any fun. And
you know, I'm out of shape, but I don't I don't know what's
going on. And it's like you kind of lose you kind of start losing
hope, Like you know, I'm not that old, and it's like I
don't really have a career now. And in the shop market's not that great.
I've heard from no think think things are are tough all over right now
they're getting better, trust me, but they're tough all over. But but
Edward, I want to point out something that's that's evident already. If you
don't eat, what happens, Well, you get hungry and you get kind
of weak, okay, and then finally your body is fed in many ways.
It's fed physically with nutrients, it's fed spiritually, and it's fed intellectually,
and people don't see it that way. And what you're describing to me
is atrophy. It's the same thing if you don't move, if you don't
engage yourself, and you're probably your your emotional and intellectual metabolism was probably probably
faster than most. The fact that you describe many hobbies and things and probably
needs to be fed more than most. And each time you you cut one
of these things out of your life, or each each time you, you
know, stop doing something, you start to atrophy, you start to break
down, and and it's going to work against you. Hold on tight,
because I want to talk to you in just a second, Edward, you're
still there. Thanks for holding. You were talking about how you've lost a
little bit of a zest for life when it comes to your hobbies, the
things you do. You've had some ailments, you've been sick, you've had
a death, you're a single dad, right, you're not working, a
lot of things going against you, and you're and you're feeling it. And
I was talking about the the atrophy and how your body craves a lot of
things. It creates. It craves nutrients, but it also craves the and
has the desire to be fed intellectually and spiritually. And it sounds like,
one by one you've removed certain things from your life. And I know that
our time will go by really quickly here, but I wanted to tell you
that you need to retrace your steps backwards a little bit, and you need
to bring some of these things back into your life. Interest comes and goes
sometimes, but you can't trust that all the time. The body, sometimes
when it goes through little bouts with change or frustration, will start to almost
punish itself, saying that well, I don't deserve to have this pleasure or
I don't deserve this right. These types of interests should go away. And
it's not fair to you set out say, hey, some things that I
want to do. You have to have goals. When you don't have half
tos in your life, the want tos tend to fall by the wayside as
well, and you just kind of stop being a human being. You just
stop because you think, oh, well, I can't do this or I
can't do that. And it doesn't mean that expensive hobbies should you know,
be more important than saving money or any of these things. No, but
spending that time, especially with God's creation and like you did with surfing,
or doing things that are active, and then your body starts to change.
Like you said, if you're not surfing, you get out of shape.
Right now, you're just spiritually and emotionally out of shape, Edward. That's
it, And the only way to get back into it is to do it
one day at a time, the same way you would if you were working
out. To put yourself on a program where you inject certain things back into
your life a little bit at a time and work yourself into the ability to
do them once again and to find you know, because joy is always around
you. It's happiness that people seek, strangely enough, which is just little
bits of joy because of things that they're doing. And to do that again
you have to just kind of reverse the process, take the time and jump
back on. Otherwise you're going to continue to cut out one more little thing
and one more little thing until it's all gone and there's no ability. You
just kind of dig your own hole and now you got to climb out of
that. But it's not bottom line us and there is a way out all
those things. You know this that word, And you've built yourself up before,
and I have nothing but the utmost confidence in you that you will build
yourself up again. Verry, welcome to the Jesus Christ. Show Jesus,
Now you went to heaven from the tomb on Easter. Now when did you
return to earth to show the disciples of the holes in your hands? In
what sense? So? Well? There are? Yeah, I see that.
You know, you always see these pictures of you know, Jesus standing
there with showing his hands to the disciples, and there's holes in his hands
and his feet. And my sister and I were just discussing, Oh,
where that takes place in scripture? Yes, well, you can go to
the Book of John. You can go to the Book of John in chapter
twenty in verse twenty six. We'll start with verse twenty six and says that
after eight days again his disciples were inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus
came to the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said,
peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, reach hear your
finger and see my hands, And reach hear your hand, put it into
my side, and be not unbelieving, but believing, and it says Thomas
answered and said to him, my Lord, my God. Interestingly enough,
the word there God is actually Jehovah. Jesus said to him, because you
have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see
and yet believed. So that may be the reference that you're looking or thinking
about, but keep in mind the artist depictions are artist depictions, and sometimes
they take license. But yes, there were those that asked, and there
were those that wanted to see because days earlier they were looking at me hanging
on across right. Okay, thank you very much, Jesus, you're very
very welcome. And also important in that story is the concept of of blind
faith. It's not so much that Thomas was being punished in any way,
shape or form, or you know, doubting. Thomas is referred to a
lot. You know, oh he's he doubted, he didn't have faith,
And it's not that that faith is not separate from reason or understanding at all.
This concept of blind faith is something that people have continued to perpetuate,
but it's really not what's asked in scripture. Faith is that which comes after
reason. It's that point where you can't reason anymore because you can't know.
And this happens on a day to day basis in the real world world as
well. In a court of law, you're you're doing it beyond the shadow
of a doubt. You don't have the certainty because you're dealing with a past,
singular event, an event that happened once, and you can't really go
back or recreate it in a petri dish, So you have to forensically take
the information that you do have and put it together to understand it better.
Now that you wouldn't say that that in a court of law the jury is
convicting somebody on blind faith, But technically that's what they're doing. That faith
has to come in at some point after all the evidence that that jury has
to look and say, well, this evidence points to this. We weren't
there, we didn't see it happened, but the evidence points to it happening
this way, and we're going to take that small bit of faith and jump
from this last bit of evidence that we do have and the fact that we
weren't there to see it happen and close that gap. And that's really what
happens with your faith when it comes to God as well. There are things
that you can know. There's a huge book that points to the things that
you can know. There's history and things you can know there. There's the
way the world works, and there's things in the natural world that point to
a supernatural God. And you can use all those things to understand and to
point you in the direction of God. But it's not about being ignorant of
the facts. Blind faith isn't ignoring what's in front of you and believing in
it anyways. And so when Thomas was here doubting, it's that he wanted
proof. He wanted to see, he wanted some evidence of what went down
and why, and therefore wanted to, you know, put his hand into
my side and put his finger in the holes in my hands. And that
was okay. It's not that I was punishing him in any way and saying
that he was less than I was, just saying there's going to come a
time where people won't have that opportunity, and that more blessed will they be
for having leaning to lean themselves upon the truth of God and not just the
evidence of man. And those things can go hand in hand. John,
Welcome to the Jesus, Christ, show Jesus. This is a complicated question.
Okay, Okay, God's people talk to God. God talks to God's
people. And here I am a valley circer boulevard where the Catholic Church is
right next door to the Temple, and I'd fould like to be in on
that conversation. So you feel how you feel like you don't have a conversation
with God. Well, I can have a conversation with God, and the
Catholics can have a conversation with God, and the Jews can have a conversation
with God. But what is God say to the Catholics about the Jews next
door and vice versa. Well, if you want to if you get into
you know, uh he said he said, or they said they said,
Or if you're trying to set up like the ultimate cage match between religions and
get them all in and say who's you know, gonna be the most truthful,
that's a that's part of the search for you. If people get kind
of weird when it comes to religion because they don't want to say anybody is
wrong. But I'll tell you religions, the different religions in this world are
have exclusivity to the things they say. That's any truth statement has exclusivity.
If you say Hi, I'm John, you can't be not John. At
the same time, if you're really John, just everything you say that has
truth. This is a one dollar bill, well, then it's not a
ten dollars bill. So every truth statement has exclusivity to it. But I'm
confused. If I'm confused, it would be on the point of when God
take to the Jewish people on Saturday morning, then he would talk to But
you're assuming that God talks to everybody. No, you're the assumption is that
God talks to everyone who says that God's talking to them, My point being
that they can all be wrong. Okay, if it doesn't mean because someone
has a church or a temple or a building with some you know, symbolism
on, it doesn't mean that they're talking to God. You can walk into
a grocery store and yell mom and at least fifty percent of the women will
turn around. Does that mean that all those women are the mother of the
child calling mom? No, So don't assume just because someone says they're of
a religion or a belief, that God's talking to them. But God's talking
to someone, and the point of your quest on this planet is to find
out who God's talking to. How would you explain it to the children?
How would I explain what? Well? The kids and they're both schools.
Saint bernda Deine's has an awful lot of kids in the playard. When they
look at through the fence and they see Temple Alayah and the kids playing in
that playyard, how would you explain to a ten year old the difference between
the two playyards? How do you explain the difference between any truth and that
which is truth and that which is false. So you're trying to make it
about these two belief systems, and I'm saying, don't even get into that
game. Make it about what's true and what's not true? And how are
kids taught about anything? How do you teach a kid that two plus two
equals four and doesn't equal eight. Well, that's a simple one. Why
is that a simple one? Well, my belief has always been that if
you can't explain it to a ten year old, then it's wrong. Okay,
So quantum mechanics doesn't exist, and heavy mathematics doesn't exist, and most
science doesn't exist. That's not fair that you're actually misquoting a very good quote,
which is that if you know something, you should be able to simplify
it, to explain it. However, you can't explain everything to a child.
You can't. That's why they're children. If a child could comprehend everything,
then you wouldn't need an adult to teach them. Well, what would
you say if you were the pastor and a kid came up to you and
he said, how come I can't go across the Thames and play with the
Steinberg kids? What do you Why couldn't they While you're making this about Judaism
and Christianity, why couldn't they play? The truth is they're two separate schools,
they have separate rules, and you can't just hop the fence of another
school to play with those kids. I mean, it's not about segregation.
It's about that they have particular messages they're trying to teach the kids, just
like you know a kid at a grade school. It might be next to
a high school, but they're not in the high school. They're not in
the high school curriculum, and therefore they wouldn't be in that high school.
I don't know what you're you're trying to make a battle between Christianity and Judaism
and and and I know a lot of people are hoping for this kind of
universalism, but universalism is a cop out. It's not there are truths that
you can know. And if you can know truths about math or about science,
there are truths that you can know about God, and they either hold
or they don't hold. Well, the ultimate truth is God is God,
and one size worship and both sides are worshiping God. Why should there be
a sense between them? Because the God is just a term like mom.
Not every mom is your mom, John and not every so someone can say,
hey, your mom's picking you up from school and it not be your
mother, And that's a lie. So this concept of people saying that Gosh,
if you believe in God, then you're okay, No, because who
is your God? If you tell me, if you had a kid in
class and history class talking about Martin Luther King Jr. And And they think
he's a you know, a four foot tall Asian woman with a mohawk and
a limp, They're going to be wrong. So it's not about the name,
it's about the substance. Of the name. It's there's more to it
than just that term God. And this kind of concept that God's above all
things and therefore every religion sees God properly is wrong, because every religion sees
God differently, and those differences mean something, and they contradict And if you
say God is you know, if God is round, and the next religion
says God is square, and then the next person says God is a triangle,
they're different and they're contradictory. So you have to find out if God's
really a square, a circle, or a triangle. And there's ways to
do that, but just to pontificate about you know, well, how come
and there's disagree remans, Well, then you know, you break down all
the borders and it's one world and everybody gets along and there's one currency and
everybody's happy, and that's that's not the way it is. There's borders for
a reason. The best thing is not to say, well, I'm wearing
this shirt. I was born with this shirt, so this is what I
believe. It's to seek and you shall find that sounds familiar, doesn't it.
KFI AM six forty on demand